Carbon footprint calculators for construction

Carbon footprinting buildings and construction requires the analysis of a large number of materials, products and assemblies. This can be a laborious task and carbon footprint calculators may be of assistance. A selection of carbon footprint and embodied carbon assessment calculators and tools for construction are presented below. At the moment tools with true BIM integration are lacking. Only publicly available carbon calculators and tools are listed below.

The Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions Estimator Tool is an Excel based calculation tool which estimates the carbon dioxide saved in selecting different construction techniques and supply alternatives, including the use of primary or recycled and secondary aggregates. The AggRegain Tool is freely available from WRAP.

﻿Asphalt Pavement Embodied Carbon Tool - asPECT﻿

asPECT provides a methodology and calculator to calculate the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions or ‘carbon footprint’ of asphalt used in highways. The project has a freely downloadable Excel based asPECT calculator.

Build Carbon Neutral

The build carbon neutral tool is a website tool that helps developers, builders, architects and land planners approximate the embodied carbon emissions of a project's structures and site.

Environment Agency Carbon Calculator for Construction

The Environment Agency Carbon Calculator for construction is an Excel based tool. The tool can be used to assess and compare the sustainability performance of different design and management choices at the options appraisal stage. It helps highlight where you can make big carbon savings on specific construction projects. It can also be used to help calculate your organisation’s overall carbon footprint from construction and identify ways of reducing it.

PAS 2050 Carbon Calculator for Stoneworks

A free carbon footprint calculator is available from the Natural Stone Specialist website. It is an Excel based spreadsheet that is being made available to the stone industry by Forest Pennant. It was devised by Forest Pennant for the PAS 2050 Carbon Footprinting certification it has achieved on its paving. Read more and download on the Natural Stone Specialist website.

The High­ways Agency Carbon Calculator for Construction

The Highways Agency have a carbon calculator for construction. They have devel­oped a car­bon cal­cu­la­tion method­ol­ogy, so their busi­ness and sup­ply chain have a con­sis­tent and trans­par­ent method­ol­ogy for col­lect­ing and cal­cu­lat­ing their car­bon emis­sions. They use the data to cal­cu­late an annual car­bon foot­print for the High­ways Agency, includ­ing their main­te­nance, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tional (office and travel) activities. The Excel based carbon calculators are freely available.

Transport Scotland have developed an Excel based carbon calculator for road and rail projects, which they call their Carbon Management System. It was developed and implemented a Carbon Management System (CMS) as a suite of tools to measure our scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions associated with our construction and maintenance activities across our road and rail schemes. Transport Scotland do not currently offer a direct download link, but they do invite you to get in touch if you would like a copy of their calculator.

Other carbon footprint calculators

There are many carbon footprint calculators and tools for construction. If you would like to discuss carbon calculators further, or if you would like a calculator adding to the list (that is publicly available), please contact us.

Interested in Carbon Footprinting? Download the ICE Database for FREE

If you are interested in finding out more about embodied carbon in construction please download a copy of the ICE database, which is an embodied energy and carbon database of materials. Download by filling in the form below.